The Only Exception
by Synesthete
Summary: Nine POV. Elaborations, missing scenes, and a couple extra episodes; a slight retelling of the first season, and a few eps of the second season. Very angsty for awhile. More or less canon-compliant until the end of "The Doctor Dances". WRITING CRITIQUES WELCOME.
1. Rose — Appreciation

The Only Exception  
AKA "The Doctor Waxes Wangst While Navel-Gazing, and Rose is His Woobie – with a Songfic Title!"  
(I do hope it comes off better than that.)

A/N: I'm a few years late to the /DW/ universe, but better late than never. I murdered all of glorious season one in a weekend and love it to death and want to squeeze it and hug it and call it George. I only felt like tweaking the universe because I wanted to see more Nine; he was gone too soon! That and I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to [re]writing fiction, although it was delivered on in the actual show, to a point, which surprized me and made me a very happy camper.  
Warning: If you don't like angst, leave now.  
Characters: Nine (PoV), Rose, Jackie, Adam, Jack, OC, and so on.  
**Wanted: Reviews, good and bad. Essssspeccccially if I've written anything out of character, or if I've done something evil from a plot/PoV/cliché standpoint, or if I failed at Britspeak (American here), or if I could do better at it (I tried not to overwrite the dialect for readability reasons, but if I missed anything obvious), ***PLEASE*** bring it to my attention! This fic is first and foremost for me to practice writing, so I would like to use it to improve. Also welcome are suggestions of things you wanted to see but didn't see or things you didn't think were needed or didn't work. Etc. Thankee. :)** I would further love to hear what you like about any of it otherwise.  
Disclaimer: I don't own squat. I have also taken the liberty of quoting and misquoting various episodes. Hopefully that's not a problem.

-.-.-

Rose | Appreciation

-.-.-

Students? I like her. Quick and clever, this one. Not so easy to rattle, either.

...

Huh. That's odd; I don't normally get challenged and reprimanded like that by some little upstart human, nor one that's just come aboard the TARDIS for the first time. Maybe, your alien comment notwithstanding, you're not experiencing as much of a culture shock as I thought. After all the death I've seen... maybe I've managed to lose track of what even one individual's loss means to everyone else, even if he is theoretically still alive. While I'm not there yet, I think it's a perspective I shouldn't mind rediscovering.

...

I catch you mid-gallant-swing and hold you for a split second in a hug. You did it! If it would be appropriate to kiss you in pure appreciation right now without scaring you off, I might just would have.

...

He tethers you to the spot, petrified of what I and the TARDIS might be or do. In remarkable contrast, wonder shines at me in your eyes. You're comfortable around me, and I could use someone bold and capable and caring like you. I _need_ someone like you to help pick back me up. So despite your rooted distance, I get my hopes up and ask, smile on my face, arms crossed to steady and belie my self-conscious awkwarness. After a millennium, I may have found the ideal companion to keep me company, hold my hand, remind me why life is important. ...all until you notice and acknowledge _his_ neediness. The regret and the note of hollowness is apparent in your voice when you choose between us and tell me you can't choose me. As if you were the earthquake, I am where the tsunami hits; that regret multiplies before washing over me, knocking back and drowning out the impassioned optimism you had built up in me.

I try not to let on the effect your words have had. "Okay." I don't want to tell you a final goodbye, so I don't. I only hope I'll run into you again some day by accident. Maybe.

Your eyes are locked with mine. I try not to stare, transfixed, but for a few moments I can't help myself; it's a tangible vision of what I've been missing. I finally bow out of your statuesque presence, closing the door in front of me.

By the time I'm back in the vortex, it occurs to me you didn't even agree to 'seeing me around'. In my disappointment, I'd shut you out before I could win you over. No, definitely not a goodbye, then. I saw your face, and I know where you'd _rather_ be, and it definitely wasn't seeing to that idiot in your little human flat. You were right there on the verge of changing your mind, I know it. Just a little nudge is all you would have needed.

I can count the number of people I've asked — the ones who didn't themselves ask or suggest or simply stick around — on one hand. I've never asked anybody twice. Not ever. But I think you're worth it. I need someone like you, someone who can make me better.

I have to go back.

When I pop open the door, I shift aside my pride and slap an air of happy confidence onto my face to make it at least sort of seem like I wasn't begging. I casually drop that the TARDIS also travels in time. Your smile, even if considered, tells me all I need to know about the next choice you'll make. _Yes. _Best chat-up line ever, so to speak. Envigorated, and without a glance at the lump you're leaving behind, I jump back and half run, half skip up the ramp to the console and wait on what you'll decide for your following choice — backwards or forwards in time, with me.

-.-.-

A/N: The other chapters are longer and less disjointed.


	2. The End of the World — Dating

The End of the World | Dating

_I'm glad you're impressed. I, personally, am blinded by the nauseating, in-your-face shade of every pink conceivable._

-.-.-

"The tree woman? Jane?", you ask tentatively, seeking confirmation of what you assumed I told her associates.

"Jabe."

You look back to me, waiting for a solid answer.

My eyes are hard. "She died saving the rest of us."

...

You asked me where I'm from, what I am, after we'd arrived on the station. I shouldn't've yelled at you. Sometimes, in this body generated for the sole mission of combat in mind, I get more defensive and more irritated than I should, and sooner than I should. Not having anyone to answer to in awhile, let alone to meaningfully converse with, I've lost some perspective on the universe. Perspective and any innocence I could have had left after living so long.

"You think it'll last forever. People and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day, it's all gone. Even the sky." You follow my gaze up to the pale cyan and whisps and the few streaks of white that decorate it. It's nearly as bright as the burning red we saw minutes ago, except it is so much more serene ﾗ lazy, even, like it's got all the time in the world to hang above and look down on everything below.

I wasn't ready to talk about myself to anyone then, though you've opened me up to it now. After nearly getting you killed, and after reflecting my mood by showing you the end of your world, with you as the single survivor, ungenerously sharing through a scheduled peace what I had to experience through bloodshed and tragedy, I feel like I owe you something else. Maybe an explanation. And now that the honeymoon of running away from your home planet and time has piddled out, you're coming to realise you know next to nothing about the alien you ran away with.

"My planet's gone." You look over to me with interest ﾗ no, concern as well ﾗ and I continue.

"It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust. Before its time."

"What happened?"

"There was a war. And we lost." I didn't bring you here so you could be dragged down with me. I want you to see that time is what people make of it. So much time was frittered away by those who called themselves Time Lords. I never did understand why they never wanted to take all the time available to them to _live_.

I think you'd said something, but I only pull myself back to the present to pay enough attention to what you ask after: "What about your people?"

"I'm a Time Lord. The last of the Gallifreyans.", I finally tell you this time. "They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own 'cause there's no?e else."

The pain in my expression must show because you're so kind to try and ease it. "There's me...", you look up at me expectantly.

There is that.

But I need you to seriously think about what I'm getting you into. "You've seen how dangerous i' is. Do you want to go home?"

"I dunno. I wan'..." You really start to consider it, but then you look away, almost confused, and sniff. "Oooh. Can you smell chips?"

"Yeah." Leave it to you to make me laugh in relief after that. "Yeah!"

"I want chips." It's a definitive. It can't be said you're a girl who doesn't know what she wants. The rest can come later.

"Me too.", I answer promptly in kind.

"Right, then, before you get me back in that box, chips i' is, and you can pay."

I shrug my pockets with a grin. "No money." I could go grab some from a cash machine, but it's more trouble than it's worth if you've got something on you.

"What sort a' da'e are you?", you shake your head, chiding. "Come on then, tightwad. Chips are on me."

Ha! Rose Tyler, I would be _delighted_ for you to take me out for chips. I can't believe it: I tell you how alone and damaged I am, and you offer to give me an understood connection I haven't had with anyone in so long, to keep me company, if even just for chips. That's really something.

"We've only got five billion years 'til the shops close.", you stick your tongue out the side of your mouth through your teeth as you giggle. Your recovered mood is not only infectious but welcome.

We start off down the boulevard hand in hand. I look back over at you for a few seconds, mulling over just how first-rate you are. Saving my life, hopping in my TARDIS, and surviving the annihilation of your planet — and you're collected enough at the end of the day to want to stroll around and have a meal with me. You let go of another giggle, bouncing the side of your head against my shoulder.

In following your expert nose to the chippy, you stumble over asking more about me that I seem more willing to reveal before. "So you're... Golfree..."

I inadvertently wince. "Gallifreyan."

You narrow your eyes ever so slightly, focusing on saying it right. "Gallifreyan." I nod and open the door for you. Least I can do after your experience today, I figure. We stand in line to order.

"So... all those aliens. Like I said; they were so different." You didn't stress 'different' this time like you had last. Maybe you're getting used to it already? "Why's it you look human?"

I laugh out loud at that one. "You mean why do humans look like Gallifreyans." The girl paying for her food in front of us gives me a once-over over her shoulder.

"That works too.", you concede.

I order us chips and a water, and you add on a cream fizzy. "Convergent evolution.", I pick the conversation back up. "By co?cidence, we happened to develop along the same anatomical lines and therefore mostly the same physiological lines. Nature tends to vary the themes on what she knows works. But for a few differences, our species're practically identical in looks."

You seem to process this information quickly. "I knew you 'ad a second pair of arms folded up under there.", you tease, poking one jacketed arm.

"Two hearts."

You blink, obviously not expecting that.

I can see you're holding back from the urge to invade my personal space with more than a simple poke, and I roll my eyes good naturedly while turning my body square with yours. "Go ahead."

Your hand comes up to rest a little on the left side of my chest, where you rightly expect the first one to be, and you cock your head a bit before moving your hand to the right. "That's nice.", you comment, meeting my eyes. "Must be helpful?"

"Yep."

We regard one another for a moment before you self-consciously break the moment by pulling your hand away and grabbing our food and drinks off the counter. I follow you to a table by the window and take a seat opposite. "What else?"

"More complex brain. Respiratory bypass system." You quirk an eyebrow and start to suck in a breath to ask when I interrupt with the answer. "Means I can conserve and recycle residual oxygen in my system without having to breathe for awhile. Advanced immune system and healing ability," I go on, "and an extremely long lifespan, relatively speaking." Your expression shows you're imagining just how long I mean by 'extremely', but I avoid that complicated and unnecessary explanation by adding on just one of two other major differences. "And telepathic. And no," I add on lightly, "before you panic, I'm not now nor have I ever been inside your head."

You immediately appear to ease upon hearing that.

But all I can think of is how the loneliness in my own head has been deafening. The only thing that's kept me from losing my mind entirely has been...

"And the TARDIS is telepathic too."

Her. I nod again but verbally qualify "Yes, she is.", thankful you don't push the subject of my people any more than that because I honestly don't think I can handle it right now.

You let those words sink in. "Conscious and all?" You inch a chip into the side of your mouth where your tongue had been briefly perched earlier.

"To a degree."

"Can she talk?" You mind the pronoun, and it causes me an appreciative grin.

"Not as such." I shovel another couple chips in my mouth at once, glad to hear you're more or less over what you'd made out to be the telepathic invasion of your mind. "But she does have thoughts. And moods that she lets me know about when she feels like."

You seem to be thinking for a few seconds, and then you ask, "So... Are you actually speaking English now?", waving a chip between the two of us, "Or is she doing that?"

"This is all me. I like this little island you have here. Made it a point over the centuries to pick up some of its languages, dialects, ...clothing habits."

You crack a wary smile before looking down and back up again. "'M I annoyin' you?"

"Almost. Give it 'nother question or two." I lift my brows in a playful manner. Yes, most times, with most people, I would be annoyed, and I would've already changed the topic or ignored them. Right now, though, I just don't mind. Must be these excellent, crispy, crinkly strips of fried sugar we're enjoying.

I stand, stealing the last chip from our 'community basket' and reach across the table to swipe your drink for a taste. You stand as well, making a slight face but not entirely clearly showing if you're upset or not.

"Don' tell me you're afraid of alien germs."

"I assume you'd tell me if I should be." You mock-possessively snatch it back and take a long slurp 'til it gurgles to its end.

I flick my tongue around in my mouth to pick up the last of the flavor and microbubbles. "Vanilla-y. I drank it once before. Years ago, though. I like it."

"So do I. An' if you weren't so cheap, you could get one for yourself." I get a light elbow in the ribs with your cheekiness as you throw our trash away, and I have to grin. How many humans in this age would be chummy like this with a stranger, an alien, they met less than an Earth day ago?

We head back to the TARDIS, our next destination unknown. The bustle of life on the street must remind you of where we'd just deposited ourselves after the observation station because you take a hold of my hand, as we were before, as if you'd been comfortable doing so for years now. It seems like the first true, pleasant constant I've experienced in... too long.

"Front row seat, and all I could feel was...", you sigh. Knowing exactly what you mean, I give your hand a little squeeze. Felt as if I'd been doing that for years now as well. "Bu' it was beautiful. Just think instead, if it'd withered away to nothing. Wen' out in a blaze of glory instead."

My hearts clench. If only my own world had gone gloriously, not just gone down in flames. But maybe you have a point: Would it really have been that much better to wither? They had been on the slow road to that for so long.

After a minute of silence, lost in our own thoughts, I speak up. "Do you want to stick around?"

"Yeah.", your reply is immediate this time, and then you seem to consider supplying more of an answer for my benefit. "I think I could get used to this kind a' life." You add, purposefully sounding grandiose and raising your free arm, "Savin' the world an' all."

I chuckle. "In that case, I think you might make the perfect companion." I took you to the end of the world partly to see how easy you would scare off, but you came to grips with it about as well as could be expected for any human thrust into that type of unknown.

We're back standing in front of the TARDIS now, you almost imperceptibly slouching, and as I unlock the door, you comment "It's only the middle of the day here, but we've been goin' for awhile. I feel exhausted."

I quip "Jet lag." and guide you through the control room and back into the corridor. "You can have your pick of the guest rooms.", I suggest with anticipatory amusement lacing my tone.

"Room_s_? How big _is_ the TARDIS, anyway?"

"Big. But in truth," I slow to a stop and press my fingertips to one of the first doors we've come to, one that wasn't there when we left, "she can make new rooms any time she wants." At this you raise two not-_quite_-disbelieving eyebrows. "Go ahead.", I nod to the door, removing my hand. "Put your hand up there and tell her ﾗ in thoughts, images — what you'd like in yours."

You do as instructed, carefully if not reverently placing a flat palm against the heavy and thick but artificial wood, and close your eyes for a few seconds. When you open them, you remove your hand as well, looking to me in expectation.

"Go on.", I give a small smile. Almost as much fun as watching your first reactions on Platform One.

You grin back and turn the handle, then push the door wide. Your grin falls to open-mouthed astonishment. "'S like my room at home but loads bigger!"

I'm glad you're impressed. I, personally, am blinded by the nauseating, in-your-face shade of every pink conceivable. Looks like a Fepslal was murdered in here. twice.

"Look at that bed!", you indicate by running over and turning at the last instant to flop your backside on it, bouncing happily while regaining balance and taking in the rest of your surroundings: a light wooden desk and chair, a full mirror, a long chest of drawers, a wardrobe that covers almost the entirety of one wall, and a large, realistic faux window ﾗ with pink curtains, of course ﾗ displaying twilight. No doubt the TARDIS will show you your own night sky, as seen from your home in your time, in just a few minutes.

"Good then?", I chuckle at your animated spirit.

"Amazin'." Your attention focuses back on me. "Thank you, Doctor." You couldn't sound more sincere.

I hold your look for just a moment, to be happily serene living through you. "Sweet dreams, Rose." With that I close the door and leave you to do 'whatever it is human women do' to get ready for bedtime.

...

The TARDIS knows to move my room near to yours for the first couple of weeks, so I'm hardly surprised to now find my door immediately diagonal from where yours appeared earlier. New companions can break so easily — in the mental department, that is, at the least. Recurring insomnia, nightmares, irrational mood swings, homesickness; none of it's uncommon for those swept away from the simple, beans-on-toast lives they've been accustomed to leading. It can easily be too much for their subconscious to take, and most have a breakdown of some sort or another after a very short while.

Your cheery, chip-sniffing demeanor right after witnessing your planet burn could not have been entirely honest. Nobody I've travelled with up and adapts _that_quickly. There's always a perceptible shadow of anxiety if not outright fear in the background at first, laying in wait for a weak moment to be brought out. I don't sense any outward indication of fear in you, yet, but knocking around up there somewhere, you might have lingering uncertainty, and you must have a little creeping disquiet.

I leave it unmentioned to you, but I keep my door open so I can hear you if you need me during night. Most of the time you lot can't sleep on that first night until you talk out your shakes.

_Your _first night, however, I don't hear a peep until nearly eleven hours later when groggy-yawny sounds finally emanate from your room. I put my book down on my nightstand and leave my room for the kitchen in anticipation of you needing some fuel in your stomach. Forty-five minutes later, long after I've asked the TARDIS to keep the plate of sausage and eggs, sans slices of melon, warm and returned to my room to relax on my bed and pick back up on the chapter I left off, is when you decide to grace my doorway with your showered and still-a-bit-damp presence. "Thought I might need to send a search party in t' find ya.", I toss your way with an upturned brow and mildly disinterested, fleeting look.

"I'm awake and alive and ready to take on the day." I then see your hand dart to your abdomen from the corner of my eye. "M' stomach's alive too. Don' suppose you got anything to eat on your ship?" With a pause, you add "Human food?"

I almost snort. Well, I did snort, but just a little. And roll my eyes. "In the kitchen, Rose." I put my book back down, and once to you, I walk alongside, leading you there. The rest of the day is spent showing you around a few of the more commonly-used rooms of the TARDIS. In the process, I'm glad to say we don't lack in any of the comaraderie and humor and interest we've enjoyed together already.

Still, you seem perfectly normal, 'though I can only go on what I know so far is normal for you. But I assume your prior, very long day's experiences will catch up with you tonight.

They don't. It's always such a _thing_to me when I find out I'm fundamentally wrong about something. Maybe because that doesn't happen very often.

After an indulgence during the next 'day' and 'evening' in chatting about this and that and a short and uneventful trip to New Jyarshanem, it's time for your third night aboard. I don't hear a sound from you until right at eight hours later when you awake as normal as can be.

Strange, that. Unless you are one screwed up little ape who intends to lose her mind at some unexpected and inconvenient time in the future, I think it's fair to say you pass the muster.


	3. The Unquiet Dead — Falling

The Unquiet Dead | Falling

_So if it's going to be my final pleasant thought in existence, I just want you to know, I'm so glad I met you."_

-.-.-

I'm amused with the notion that you might've gotten well and thoroughly lost after the directions I fired off at you, even though I took you there once, two 'days' ago. So after some time, when I hear the floor grates shift under weight, I figure you've come to tell me where I can stick it. I nearly do a double take when I glance up from my fiddling underneath the console. Taken aback, my eyes flitting up and down and up again. "Blimey!", I divulge the first thing that comes to my mind.

"Don't laugh!", you point and, well, laugh at me, fully expecting I'll join in on it. It doesn't even register with me.

"You look _beautiful_." Mesmerized by your perfect, toothy smile, it takes a fair moment for my brain to connect with my mouth, and I want to smack myself for what I've just let drop. "Considerin'.", I catch with a slight frown, aimed at myself only. Gallifreyans are _not_supposed to fraternise with lesser species, least of all companions. We didn't even fraternise with our own kind most of the time. I casually return to fiddling, hoping you won't notice my slip-up, or at the least put too much stock into it. I'm having a conversation with myself at the moment as to whether I should put too much stock into it either ﾗ and if I do, that I'd best be tamping any such thoughts down.

"Considering wha'?" I can hear the confusion and near hurt in your tone. Not what I wanted.

I go for lighthearted and make sure you see my grin before I turn away, pretending to be distracted. "Tha' you're human."

"I think that's a compliment." You pause. "Aren't you gonna change?"

Unnecessary effort! "I changed my jumper.", I offer, and bound up out of the grating to show you out the door. "C'mon."

"You. In the wardrobe." You order with a motherly and serious pointed finger, contrasting with the full grin that's returned to your face. "Ten minutes, tops." The soft light from the roundels dances in your eyes, and it's contagious; I can't resist: off I go to get changed. But while I don't mind humouring you, if not trying to impress you, I don't want to put _too_much thought into it so we can get out and get adventuring as quickly as possible.

...

Hours, a car chase scene of sorts, and multiple zombies later, I'm shoving you as delicately as I can into a barred-off alcove in this morgue, away from the walking dead who want to take over our bodies and the world, undeterred by our protests to the contrary.

"We'll go down figh'in', yeah?", you propose. You're holding it together; no screaming, no crying. Just you, breathing laboured, anxious but resolute, waiting to see what will happen, waiting to figure out what we'll have to do to survive this.

"Yeah." We gape ahead at what appears to be our fate. Not exactly the way I'd ever pictured myself going.

You look to me for assurance. "Together?"

Without hesitation, I return all that I can drum up, trying to keep the sadness over the end of your life at bay. "Yeah."

You fumble for my unexpecting hand, for supportive courage, and lace your fingers with mine. I hold on like you're my lifeline. Funny, that, considering I hadn't wanted a companion since the war began. After, my roughworn leather jacket, boots, and demeanor had made it clear I wanted everyone at a distance. But then I met you. You pursued me with what I'd've said was gratuitous zeal out of your flat, past the garages, and over the courtyard field, stopping only across the street to where I'd parked the TARDIS, and you made me smile, joke, and laugh freely along the way, opening me to, sadly, the best conversation I'd had in years. You almost had my mind changed then. When I'd first stumbled upon you in the basement corridor of that shop, mucking up my plans, I couldn't help but grab for your hand, and I have't stopped wanting to since. There's a spark in your eyes that's long left mine and an unspoilt innocence in how you see the world that has started to bring me back to life.

So if it's going to be my final pleasant thought in existence, I just want you to know, "I'm so glad I met you."

"Me too." Your thousand watt smile lights up this dark, cramped corner. where we're surrounded by single-minded, possessed corpses. in Cardiff.

If we live through this, some day I will let you know that my brief time with you has been the happiest I've experienced in a hundred years. What I know right now is that I may not've had a good life, but at least I can say the end of it was most definitely, as you so eloquently pointed out to me this morning, better with two.

...

Something's changed. Changed in me because of you. What happened to Gwyneth was just as tragic as what became of Jabe, but this time, my eyes can't seem to hold the depth of hardness, pain, or defeat.

"I'm sorry, Rose, but there was nothing I could do for her."

A minute later, you voice your own lament. "She saved the world. A servant girl. No one will ever know."

Rarely are the people who do the most amazing things properly recognized, whether they be "the great and the good" or, more often than not, the seemigly insignificant.

For a time, the three of us stand in respectful silence as the flames rise and the brick and mortar start to collapse. Then you break through the exhausting crackles and speak again. "Doctor, take me home?"

Those four words immediately make me feel as if I were a part of the building before us, falling inward with a small, broken death. I almost don't register your clarification.

"...to the TARDIS, yeah?", you take my hand with a slight squeeze and force a brief but sad grin after what's happened to your almost-friend. "I 'ave no idea where she is from 'ere."

We've known each other for such a short time in human terms, far briefer in Gallifreyan terms, been traveling together for not more than a week and a half, and yet you're already referring to my home as your home. No companion's expressed that thought so innocetly nor anywhere near so quickly. I mull the concept over, liking the feel of it on my tongue: The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. It would do me good if that's how it should be, at least for the time being.

Yes, Rose, I will gladly take you home. With the smallest of tugs, I lead you away. A give a nod back to Dickens who trails along, deep in contemplation of the events of the evening. Little does he know this will be his very last Christmas.


	4. Aliens of London — Domestication

Aliens of London | Domestication

_But then you have to go and form the prelude to a pout, which in turn causes my internal fa?de of '_no_' flake away from its supporting structure of 'I really don't do that' through which fissures begin to spread. "Visit my mum", you said._

-.-.-

"Can we go visit my mum? For just a bit?"

Ahhh, no. I don't go visiting any companion's family unless it's to drop him or her off. Permanently. And even then, it's almost always far more of a curbside dropoff than it could be in any way construed as a visit. And a visit with chatting and tea, if that's what you're implying, is simply out of the question. No, definitely not. Never happening. The look I'm giving you should answer your inquiry well enough.

But then you have to go and form the prelude to a pout, which in turn causes my internal façade of '_no_' to flake away from its supporting structure of 'I really don't do that' through which fissures begin to spread. "Visit my mum", you said. Not 'go home'.

I frown. I really _don't_ do that, and that's what worries me. I think you have wormed your way under my skin.

After another moment, I end up sighing. As riveting as a holiday visit to a council estate I've already been to in 2005 London sounds... I've got to say, since you are for putting it that way, a subdued "Yes, of course." escapes my throat faster than I anticipated. That worries me further.

_Temporary_ curbside drop-off. I'll be staying well out of the way.

...

_Oh, bloody hell._ I can't even stay away now. Skimming that flyer, I'm propelled into an inspired sprint to your mum's flat. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I can get to you before you get to her, then get the two of us back to the TARDIS so we can retr...

Yeeeeahhhno.

Surprise to shock to panic to embarrassment to shame cross your features in succession.

My fault.

...

"When you say 'companion', is this a sexual relationship?"

I glance to you as if to convince myself he really is indicating _you_ with that idea, and my head automatically snap-shakes. "No!", you and I reply at the same time. Is this police ape as stupid as he looks? That is _not_ what my companions are for. _Ever._I meant travel companion literally!

Humans.

...

After the policeman's satisfied with your explanation of travelling of your own free will and is convinced I'm not dangerous or perverted, your mother, who isn't quite convinced, starts in with the waterworks. They don't produce any more information out of you than did her prior confrontation-with-backup. I think I've done an exceptional job in keeping my composure, but I'm not interested in taking much more of it. I go wait outside the door while you tell her you'll be back once she's calmed down some more, when she will listen and not jump to accusing you of lying, and you promise her you won't go far in the meantime. I'm leaning against the outer wall when you exit the flat door. You don't acknowledge me beyond the smallest of shrugs given as an explanation of how it went in there. We loop around the outside of the building first before ascending the stairs to the roof where we can have some downtime without drawing any ...well, extra... police attention to the TARDIS.

This was kind of an award-winning screw-up on my part, one that really wouldn't've happened if I'd been paying bloody attention. Unlike ending up in Cardiff instead of Naples, I don't think I can blame this one on the TARDIS's meddling. "For what it's worth, I _am_ sorry.", I admit. I'm remarkably hesitent to hear your next words, far too concerned you might decide it's best to end your companionship with me over this. Or, more likely, maybe because everything you've been through lately is catching up to you and has been brought to a head by this.

You examine my face as if to determine my sincerity before you give me a nod followed by a sigh. "Yeah. I know. Ih's jus'...", you trail off, sounding deep in thought but not upset.

I release a breath. It's quiet enough up here, in stark contrast to being in your mother's presence.

"She thinks I've been traumatised, lost my mind." You climb up on a central wall and sit, elbows on knees, feet crossed. I lean against it not far from you, waiting to hear out anything you have to say. "I can't tell her. I can't even begin... She's never gonna forgive me." Yet you've forgiven me so easily, and for all I can tell, without having giving even a single thought to it? "And I missed a year?", you ask me. "Was it good?"

"Middling.", I mutter.

"You're so useless."

If you have somehow decided to up and forgive me, then you're just complaining to have something to complain about since you don't know what to say. Or if that's not the case, you should go ahead with it and take your easy out already. But you don't, so I'll have to test you, make you make up your mind. "Well, if it's this much trouble, are you gonna stay here now?"

"Idunno." I look away. You're still avoiding, not taking your frustrations out on me. Though I have to say, I am a little surprised by your answer; I didn't expect much apart from a firm yes or no. Even so, I'm glad to know you don't knee-jerk answer just for my benefit or your own. "I can't do that to her again, though.", you add on.

"Well, she's not coming with us." Right after the thought leaves my lips, we're both laughing.

"No chance.", you agree.

Good. "I don't do families." So why is it, again, that I'm here, standing around bored and annoyed, waiting on you, waiting on you waiting on her, entertaining your request of seeing your family? Oh, right; because you asked, and I couldn't seem to deny you. Yes, I'm definitely worried.

"She slapped you!", you proclaim with awe. Not with an awe that your mother would slap someone — it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that behaviour might amount to routine with her — but with an awe that even your mother would have the gall to slap _me_.

I noticed you didn't say a thing to her about it at the time. I hardly blame you; admittedly I did deserve it, and the thought of slapping me yourself for landing you here at such an inauspicious time might've even crossed your mind then. "Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother.", I resign.

You're not holding back a smile now. "Your face."

Fine, no sympathy from you, then! "It hurt!", I whine in good nature.

"You're so gay!"

I rub my cheek, offended that my pride was wounded.

"When you say nine hundred years..."

Yep. "That's my age."

"You're nine hundred years old.", you repeat, lost in absorbing the reality of it.

"Yeah."

I'm about to wonder if that alone could send you running, but instead you run right over my thought with "My mum was right; that is one hell of an age gap." Turns out you fully take it in stride while making a relationship joke of it, never ceasing to make me wonder. I presume you hop off the wall because walking around and not being next to me will help you think better. "Every conversation with you just goes mental. There's no one else I can talk to. I've seen all that stuff up there, the size of it, and I can't say a word. Aliens and spaceships and things, and I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist."

I start to laugh. You're so charming, even if you aren't aware of the few people on this planet right here and now who _do_know.

As if on cue, an alien spacecraft followed by its heavy, disturbed rumble suddenly passes overhead, close enough so we're ducking down to not get our heads chopped off. We turn and watch as it continues on in a barely-controlled fall, heading for for Central London. We can see it, in the distance, smashing through Big Ben, then proceeding to crash-land in the Thames.

Gawking, we get to our feet. You light-heartedly lament "Oh, that's just not _fair_."

I laugh uninhibited at the realization you _have_so easily forgiven me, at your answer being to stay, at your adorable frustration, and, to top it all off, at the excitement of having some definitely non-domestic, first encounter event on our hands. We'll find you other aliens to talk to besides me at some point, I promise. But for now I'm just plain giddy, and I grab for your willing hand and pull you off down the stairs so we can run toward where the ship was headed and where our next adventure awaits.

...

Closing the door as softly as possible behind me, I've just turned to go running off, putting as much distance between myself and that overcrowded, overloud, overstupid human circus of a living room as I can. After all, you're the one who's here to visit with your mum anyway. And Rickey, maybe, for all I know. I shudder at the thought.

"Promise you won't disappear?", you ask as I turn away from you again, off to check on the crash.

Gah. I get out of there, and still domesticity nips at my heels. But anyroad, me leave _you_now? Nope, apart from all the mess involved with the people you know in that apartment, I'm having a good time with you in the picture. And like you've said before, the TARDIS is your home too now. If you've made up your mind, then it'd be a little rude for me to whisk it out from under you like your question suggested, now wouldn't it. "Tell ya what." Merrily I pat my pockets, then remember which one I stuck my spare key in and fish it out. "Isomorphic TARDIS key. 'Bout time ya had one.", I plop it and the similarly-colored chain it's on unceremoniously in your opened hand. I won't tell you how few individuals I've given one of these to over the centuries, not a one in the last. I get the impression I won't be rid of you any time soon, and based on your pleased reaction to my handing that over, I'm perfectly okay with that arrangement.


	5. World War Three — Realisation

World War Three | Realisation

_At least, there's something about it, the vacuum of the dark, that when compared to the light of day makes having committed to such an action not quite real, not quite admittable, maybe not quite so bold._

-.-.-

My jaw is set. I didn't want to bring it up unless it was necessary to, but, seeing as how we're running out of options, I speak up. "There's a way out."

"Wha'?"

I move my vacant gaze from the far wall to you and, despite my desire not to, answer. "There's always been a way out."

"Then why don't we use it?"

A defensiveness kicks in, and I advance on the conference table, placing my hands on either side of the intercom. "Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe." I still can't believe I am having a conversation with your mother. I told you just yesterday I don't do families, and this right here is a good reason why. It's accomplishing nothing but keeping me emotionally charged, keeping me from any serious thinking or action.

Jackie pipes up in warning. "Don't you dare. Whatever it is, don't you dare!"

"That's the thing; if I don't dare, everyone dies."

It's shocking that Jackie stays silent — does the woman ever shut up? — but you walk around to stand on the other side of the table, and without flinching, tell me "Do it."

My eyes spring to yours, struck dumb by your simple proclamation. You're either completely mad or amazing. "You don't even know what it is. You'd just let me."

"Yeah."

With any other companion or without, I would put pretence of arrogance on display. But with you, it's stripped away leaving only me, revealing what I could be and ought to be. I bald-faced stare you down, my eyes alight with astonishment. You don't back down, either. You understand. More than that, you're incredibly selfless. You certainly _are_ amazing.

Your mother's shrieks finally do come and interrupt our moment. "Please, Doctor, please! She's my daughter! She's just a kid!"

Irritated and conflicted, I blare back "Do you think I don't know that? 'Cause this is my life, Jackie. It's not fun, it's not smart; it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will."

Thankfully you don't give her a chance to reply. "Then what are you waiting for?" You're meek but challenging, knowing what has to be done and making me come to terms with doing it.

Our eyes don't leave each other. I stand motionless, and something in me crumbles. "I could save the world but lose you." I don't realize I've even spoken until after it leaves my lips. My perception of the spin of time and space slows and stills. What I've been feeling for awhile now culminates into a specifc thought and hits me: I've fallen in love with this amazing human woman.

Correct that — human girl. Only's been nineteen years in the universe, and only'll see a scant number of decades before you...

Harriet speaks up, and I give myself a mental shake. Right. On to business. At least I know that whatever happens, you've already forgiven me for it. That means everything to me.

...

We feel the shaking before we hear the exploding, and the next thing we know, we're bathed in pitch black and thrown about and bounced around the small room like pinballs. My hand is torn from your grasp when I'm slammed by something heavy and hard and find myself flying, ricocheting off what I think might be the door. When the dust has settled, the cupboard remains dark, and my shoulder, back, and neck are a bit sore. All said, I don't think I've gotten more than a couple of bruises that will heal in no time, but I don't know about the two of you. "Rose?"

There's some rustling to my right, so I start to reach out when I hear "I believe I'm in one piece, Doctor." It's Harriet.

Distracted, I don't reply to her and instead call out again for you, more worried this time. "Rose?" I start feeling around.

_Rrmph_, I hear from across the dark space. Did that come from your throat or was that just a thing, falling off of another thing it had been precariously stacked on, and thudding to the floor?

"Rose?", I breathe in askance, wading through the sundry items that've settled, and run into somebody. I crouch down to see if it's you and for just a second am shaken when I feel no warmth and no pulse; then it becomes obvious it's the body of one of the unknown men we placed in here earlier. But he moves, and I realize you're trapped underneath. I yank his weight off you, unlike earlier, unconcerned if it'd be considered disrespectful or not in his, your, whomever's culture. I hear you suck in a breath, and my hands shoot out to where you are in an instant, wanting to make sure you're not injured though afraid to move you right away if you are.

"Ugh. Dizzy, bu' I think I'm fine."

I consciously start breathing again with those words. I help you sit up, and my hands go to rest on the sleeves of your upper arms and sides of your shoulders.

"Just a bit shaken."

I relax with a smile and an unblieveable amount of relief. Truly, without so much as a second thought, you would allow me to kill you to save this planet. But you're not dead. The "way out", the last-minute plan, worked, and you're still here and so am I. You're the best, and that's a fact. This planet doesn't deserve you. I know I don't.

Even though you can't see it, I somehow get the impression you're smiling back, especially when you launch yourself forward onto your knees and into my chest, arms fumbling around my waist pressing up the bottom of my jacket, obviously glad to find me alive and in once piece too. My own arms embrace your middle back and hold you tight for a few, perfect moments. I feel bold: before pulling back completely, I move a hand to the side of your face to allow me to gauge where your forehead is so I can mark it with a meant-it-to-be-quicker-than-it-was, relieved kiss. I try to tell myself it's a fond, paternal (but protracted) peck I'd give any female companion I passively cared about after such an event. I try.

At least, there's something about it, the vacuum of the dark, that when compared to the light of day makes having committed to such an action not quite real, not quite admittable, maybe not quite so bold. But while I may avoid dwelling on it later, it hardly matters at present; you're still alive, and the sentiment still stands. "You're safe.", I note aloud. 'For now.', I keep unspoken.

Your reply is confident and collected. "I am. Let's get out of this cupboard, eh?" I couldn't agree more and help you up, one arm lingering protectively ...no, to assist you... between your shoulder blades, and one arm of yours remaining warmly wrapped around my waist.

"Doctor, Rose," Harriet calls from what has to be not more than a metre away, "I think I've found the door." So focused on you, I'd once again all but forgotten she was there.

...

Well, we've saved the world. Y'know, if you ignore the destruction of Downing Street as part of the world. Minor casualty when compared to the alternate scenario, the destruction of the whole of the Earth. Or you.

But, crisis averted. All in a day's work, I think. Off we go, you back to your mum's for the evening and me back to the TARDIS.

"You think the Earth'll be ready to accept aliens soon?", you ask with nonchalance.

"Soon enough. Maybe, some day, they'll even be ready for crazy, eerie, terrifying aliens like me." I widen my eyes and wiggle my fingers in your face for a fuller effect. It occurs to me after the fact that that kind of routine's probably lost some effect since the morgue in Cardiff.

But you still smile — produce a hearty laugh for me, even. "Terrifyin's 'sactly what comes to mind when I look at you."

See, that's what I might tell myself, but you don't see me as that. One of the many reasons I... mmh. It's no doubt best you believe I am dangerous, a risk to run from. But I continue to joke with you instead. "Yeah, you run, alright. In the wrong direction! Din' your mother give you better instructions when it comes to strangers?"

We both laugh at that, and you take my hand as if to say you'd run right along with me anywhere, anytime. I find I can't let go, so I let my thoughts still and enjoy the moment. After all, I've had too few moments like these. I should take them where I can get them.

Not more than a few seconds pass before you speak up again. Despite trying to keep the tone light and continue acting how we had with each other, it comes out as more serious this time. "If I was gonna get abducted by an alien, I'd pick you."

The smile doesn't leave my face the whole way back. "And if I was gonna abduct a human, I'd abduct you any day.", I give a confident nod.

...

Keeping you safe forever is a flat out impossibility. I'm not on my ninth regeneration in around as many centuries because my way of life isn't hazardous. You, a short-lived human, far too short-lived, with the same eager willingness as I have to run out into the unknown, will never be completely safe with me. My lifestyle is a liability to you, and you've been all too willing to engage it. I'm annoyed with myself exactly _because_ I love that you want to. But you've become special to me, something more than just another companion I feel like a grandfather to and protector of. Over my lifetime I've had dozens of companions, and none have been like you, struck me the way you have. It's like you were created just for me and gifted to me just when I needed you the most.

What I know is that I hesitated at [and if I'm honest, I may well have decided to abstain from] putting you in danger when it was necessary because I realized I need you. I've never needed anyone before. The thought is frustrating, to say the least, but I nonetheless don't want to give you up right now. I wonder how I will be able to when the day comes that I must.

Since I can't bring myself, for either of our sakes, to make the decision for you to leave in the here and now, I have to come up with the best guarantee for your safety I can give you: I click the button on the sonic screwdriver to start the TARDIS recording. With or without me, _you_ deserve to have a fantastic life. "This is Emergency Programme One."

...

I am teetering on the edge of anger in irritation at myself. My reaction is unbecoming of a middle-aged Time Lord. It was undignified, and it was acutely selfish to pressure you into running back to me in the T... back to your home... our home?... so quickly, to talk you out of even having one night's dinner with your mother.

Thanks to my careless driving (despite the TARDIS knowing I'd need to be here, I'm still convinced it had to've been my fault on some level), I'd ended up stealing you away for an extended period of time, at least as far as your mum was concerned. A part of me, knowing that even though you'd already decided with certainty to fly the nest whether she approved or not, was still worried she would guilt you into staying with her, even if for another day.

I waver from angry to pleased and end up on pleased and, though only outwardly, unashamed. I definitely shouldn't be as pleased as I feel, but I convince myself of the truth, that your honest, open, cheery countenance is what help keep me motivated and sane. I can also rest a little easier with the little bit of insurance I have now put in place for your safety.

At least I have the decency to ask Ri... Mickey if he wants to come with us. If he were around, it would help me keep more of a distance from you, both physically and emotionally. It's for a good reason Gallifreyans have... had genetically-arranged, loveless "marriages" and that there is a rather strongly worded rule against my people in general and Time Lords in particular becoming too close to others, most definitely offworlders, lest those friends believe there's something more to companionship than a casual, no strings attached arrangement. Apart from laughing at the brevity of other, so-called lesser species' lifespans, there was little thought given to the opposite, of what would happen if a Time Lord starting thinking a friendly relationship could be more, mostly because it just _didn't happen_ and was considered far too complicated and messy and, by virtue, demeaning to superior, enlightened order. I've haven't been known for playing by the rules in any other circumstance, but yes, I have to admit, there was a very good reason for these constraints given the mindset of my people. Wanting to be with you would only get me hurt in the end and probably put you in unnecessary danger before that end. It's out of the question, and I can't allow it to happen — even after a close call, even with the lights out.

...

"Got enough stuff?"

"Last time I stepped in there, it was spur of the moment." You unceremoniously heave your overstuffed pack in my face for me to carry. "Now I'm signing up. You're stuck with me.", you point. "Haha."

I suppose you are. At least, until I bring you back or you're brought back. I don't want to think about those possibilities, though, so I let my mind wander to a different way of thinking about our situation now: I suppose this is a leisurely, planned abduction this time, then. Okay.

I watch your interaction with your mum, and when you finish with her and turn to your current, sort-of, possibly former boyfriend, I am treated to the full force of her accusatory glare. Yes, 'your little girl's growing up', or 'I stole your daughter from you', et cetera. Think what you will, but everyone leaves the nest at some point. Speaking of nests, or, rather, nesting, I won't ask about Mickey; I'll just tell myself he stays current unless and until another distraction comes along for you on our travels.

Having all I can take of the sending-off party, I drop your over-massive pack by the jumpseat, more gently than I had expected and intended to, and set course for the vortex for the time being. I'm left with my own thoughts until you again grace me with your presence, but this time, thankfully, your unaccompanied presence with lips upturned and teeth playfully bared. Oh, that smile you can flash; it me makes me forget where I am. Ready to see where we're off to next, you take up residence by my side at the console, and I snap myself back into check. "It's been a full day. You need your sleep. Pack's over by the chair." I don't even glance back in your direction, instead pretending to be engrossed in the readings on the monitor in front of me.

But you don't leave so easily: I feel your hand come to rest on my bicep. "Thanks for letting me catch up.", you tell me, reminding me of the domestics. Then you lift yourself up on your toes and plant a kiss on my cheek causing me to freeze in place. Though gentler, it was not altogether unlike the one I placed on your forehead in Downing Street. And it was nothing like the smrch you inattentively, sloppily applied to Mickey's lips not five minutes ago in an unspirited effort to pacify him. This one meant something. What, I'm not sure. You don't seem like you're entirely sure either. But it meant something — and it wasn't done in the dark. Now, because I haven't moved a muscle in the last three seconds, I can tell you're starting to develop a look of sincere apprehension, no doubt wondering if you've just accidentally crossed a major one-sided line that gets you thrown out of the TARDIS. Part of me, the microscopic part of me that knows for certain it would be easier on the both of us in the long run, keeps silent at that thought; like I'd decided earlier, I couldn't imagine ever actually doing that to you. The way things have been for me, I think it would be my undoing in the short-run. You've so far been the one thing that's kept me in check and kept my hearts alive. So I choose to walk the line, again for both our sakes; I turn my head to show you a conceited, of-course-I-deserve-a-peck-from-the-ladies smirk, at which you visibly relax and let out a small laugh.

"Off to bed with you, Rose." Off it is you go, seemingly pleased with yourself and with us, with everything. I wish I was comfortable enough to say the same. I need to learn how to be, and the sooner the better.


	6. Interlude

Interlude

_"Yeah, 'cause, you know, bicycle pump."_

-.-.-

"Aren't you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning.", I greet from under the console after I hear you flit into the room.

"Went for a few laps to wake m'self up.", you explain, hair now dry and in a cherrily bouncing ponytail. You place a hand on the console and dance around it, coming to pause in front of me and a tangle of wires hanging out of the bottom. It's where I'd stopped, mid-repair, of a blown junction. You examine the mess as though you could work out all the functions if only you were given a single explanatory clue. "Why's it all so... jumbled?"

I can tell you've wanted to ask me since at least Cardiff why the console in general looks like a bunch of haphazard spare parts assembled and bound with not much more than glue and tape. "She and I have been through some tough times together. I haven't had the...", well, to be honest, the will or incentive, considering I didn't even want to be among the living then, but... "time to get her patched up properly."

"Yeah, 'cause, you know, bicycle pump."

My first instinct is to feel a bit offended, but in the instant I glance at you, it falls away; an eyebrow is up, and your top teeth are over your bottom lip demonstrating your innocently teasing manner that I haven't yet seen you use with anyone else but me. I grin back and pop out from under my project.

"Can't be easy t' fly like that?"

"No. Not easy anyway; she was designed for six pilots. There's just me now. — And you.", I add, softly, after awhile, to which you nod in agreement. I try not to let my thoughts wander to the wistful. "Want to learn something about it?" I realize this isn't quite your cup of tea. More Mickey the mechanic's, possibly, as it happens. Still, it would be helpful at times to have another steady hand, in addition to the laughter, at the controls.

Your curious-sounding "Yeah." alights my eyes. With a spring in my own step, I take you on a guided tour of the displays and devices for each of the five contributory stations, stopping and describing and flicking everything that requires explanation. With a few questions here and there, you seem to absorb it all as well as anyone could expect. And from a short distance, sometimes quite close, you appear interested and focused on both her and I, looking to the both of us for information, taking it all in. I do manage to skip over the functions of the primary control station and direct your attention to our next stop in twenty-third century Oxford where we will enjoy one of the finest full English breakfasts to be had in any time in any place. Now you know what to do to start us off, and off we go.

It's times like this, non-existent during and soon after the war but of late becoming embracingly frequent, that motivate me to put real effort into patching up the old girl's heart while making it look like I cared in the process. Because I do, now.

-.-.-

A/N: Sorry this is so short. Up next, a longer one.


	7. Dalek — Expansion

Dalek | Expansion

_"So do you have any more inappropriate questions before I take you back to become one with the concrete?"_

-.-.-

Your new boytoy left you there and saved himself. _Left _you.

No worse than me literally locking you in with that... that thing, a member of the deadliest race in the known universe. With the press of a button, I sentenced you to your death.

The only difference between he and I is that the uselss ape didn't seem to be all that bothered that you hadn't made it out. All that's left for me to do is to yell at him. So I yell though it gains me nothing.

Then the screen unexpectedly comes to life in front of us. I blink, believing I must be losing my mind, hallucinating. R...Rose? It shows you standing next to the Dalek. You, standing. You're...

"Open the bulkhead or Rose Tyler dies.", it commands.

I don't believe my eyes and don't process that my legs are forwarding me toward the screen. Please tell me I'm not seeing things, experiencing some sort of post-stress trauma from my fun little torture session earlier, because what I perceive I'm experiencing is a mix of pure relief and joy. "You're alive!"

"Can't get rid of me.", you retort, not really allowing me to gauge your emotional state or thought process beyond your obvious sense of fear at your situation.

The thought of you being gone was a stab to my hearts. "I thought you were dead." The truth is, you'll be gone too soon no matter when it happens.

"Open the bulkhead!", the Dalek interrupts.

"Don't do it!", you call back.

I'm stuck.

You just can't go now. It's not fair. Now is _far _too soon. You don't deserve that. But the rest of the planet is in danger...

"What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?"

Its outlandish question smacks me in the face. How would it, a malevolent, otherwise emotionless being, know that? Know anything about the concept? Unless... If you touched it, and it gleaned from you what you... what you know I feel? Or, at least, think I feel? Or want me to feel? Then... although its intention is to manipulate me, maybe it _can_be messed with, defeated easier this way. I turn a scowl on van Statten, whom I detest as much if not more than the Dalek right now, and hoof it with renewed energy over to the computer. "I killed her once. I can't do it again." With that, I hit the key that opens the door, letting the both of you free. Maybe the fate of humanity will rest on my conscience in the end, but I vow not to let you go in the process.

...

Van Statten and his damned ego! I can't take his bitching commentary anymore, so I can't help it when I finally lash out at him before I leave. "I killed them _all_ for you. _YOU!_You miserable, self-absorbed, petty little apes and all the rest!"

I stop then and think back on you, imagine if you were here in this room with me now. You would hardly want to admit to knowing me, and a tidal wave of guilt and embarrassment washes over. Yes, with those words, I think for the most part I may have just described myself. I breathe out, then back in, staring for a moment at the intangible scene I've caused before swiftly retreating out the door and to the other side of the complex to deal with my opposite, this other repulsive being, myself.

...

The enemy self-exterminated. That was it. _That _was the end of the Daleks. The very last one. All gone.

I stand here, paused, staring at where that small, exposed, pathetic mutated creature had taken up space, letting the reality of it all impact and wash over me. Eventually my brain clicks back to the present, and I remember where I am; where you are; to take a breath. Without a thought, my body now possessed, I drop the gun like a hot potato and spin around to plow into you, Rose Tyler, the still-living and present light in my existence. I latch myself around your waist, pulling you as close to me as I can get you. I nearly topple you over, but you instinctively secure your arms around my neck and hold me up. My face buries itself in the warm hollow of your neck and shoulder. I try to take a second breath, but it comes out as a choked gasp. Ragged breaths come when I lift my head a little and absently angle it in towards yours. 'Oh, Rose. I thought you were dead!' was the tortured relief first on my mind before my thoughts progressed, plunged deeper, into shadows and fire.

The deep wound has now been freshly reöpened by this experience with the enemy. I hadn't brought myself to properly grieve in this body. I hadn't felt much of anything until I met you; I was merely existing in a perpetual state of shock since all I knew was destroyed, since I murdered everyone.

The close-cropped hair on the side and back of my head stirs when you stroke it with one hand, and that, your sweet touch, is what finally breaks me. Tears run out, and I've fallen over the edge, drowning in horrifying memories from the war, images I can never forget of what transpired and of what I'd done — me, the true great exterminator. My chest hurts, and I can't feel my arms, yet I still cling to you for dear life. I feel as though I don't have to bear the weight of it all myself anymore, not with your presence in my life. In contradiction to what the Dalek had told me, I no longer feel fundamentally alone in the universe.

'It's over now. It's gone. I'm here with you.', your soothing words drift into my consciousness, and I give one small nod to it, into your hair, knowing the truth of it. The horrors fade to the background, and to replace it, what is left is... I notice a calm shimmer of soft, rosy bronze at the edge of my internal perception. I freeze in that instant, realizing you'd _thought _those words, those assuaging emotions to me during this time and had not spoken a thing out loud.

Oh _no_. I disengage and yank away from you as if you'd burnt me. I hadn't been in control of myself, and all my thoughts and emotions had been poured over to you with minimal restraint courtesy of my normally well-controlled touch telepathy. "I'm sorry!" I stand there stupidly, mouth hanging open. "I didn't mean to..." Not only did I not mean to, but I didn't even know it could _possible _for you to.

"'Sfine..." you begin before your eyes lose focus and your body sinks, but I reach out in time to catch you and help stand you back up. I retract my hands as quickly as I threw them out but notice right away that it's a bad idea as you start to sink just as thoroughly once again. This time I don't release your hip and shoulder until I can see you've regained proper balance. Must've been the sudden lack of telepathic contact, so much bombarding of your senses followed by sudden deprivation by me sucking my mind back to where it belongs, that threw you for a loop.

"Sorry again.", I wince. I can't believe I did that. We were trained from birth how to control ourselves. Besides, few of us succomb to the depth of these primitive feelings or irrationality, so it's almost never an issue. But then, here I am. I was ostracized, when they were still living, for being too liberal with my thoughts and feelings. Now, me, the weakest and deadliest of my species, gets to be the one that lives on.

You blink hard and blow out a puff of air, staring eye-level at my chest. "'m fine. I think." You look up at me in wonderment, unconcerned for yourself. "What was that?"

"My race...", I blurt out, then pause, correcting myself to what's true in the present tense. "I'm telepathic, and I wasn't thinking straight, controlling, containing myself. When you touched me, you unfortunately got to be inside my deranged head for awhile." But Rose, you didn't run from it, from me. Why? Are you just that good? Or did you not see I was the cause of all that suffering and death?

"No... It was... Like I said, 'm okay. ...Just a bi' of a culture shock is all.", you try to grin at your reference to what I'd observed when you'd entered the TARDIS for the first time. I stare. When I've convinced myself you really are fine, I nod. Culture shock indeed! But I'm so glad you don't show that you're affected too badly from an emotional standpoint, even if the physical wasn't too keen on it. "I jus' didn' realize...", you try to force out an ending to the observation and shake your head a bit in momentary failure. You look through my eyes as if to probe to my soul. "I'm sorry; wha' I said earlier. I had no idea."

How were you to know its history, my history? You rebuked me for aiming a loaded gun in your general direction, toward it, my intention to finish the job I'd started by blasting that final dalek out of existance. But you saw it as a wounded life-form in need of pity and help, not execution. You shouldn't apologize; it's who you are, and it's what makes you better than me.

"You hide it so well."

What, my daft mind? The anguish? The fact that I'm a mass murderer? My most intimate demons were bared to you, a supposèdly inferior being, yet you show that you don't think any less of me. I dread to wonder how your perspective will evolve once you really have time to process what you saw.

I can't choose how to answer you; none of the options I can come up with seem particularly uplifting. I instead choose a simple suggestion to avoid addressing my inner turmoil. "We should go."

"Yeah." Your mouth quirks after you add, "We can walk, though, not run?"

Ha. "Yep."

You offer me your hand, the one constant in this incarnation that I've so effortlessly become accustomed to. Why you do, I don't know; I don't deserve to be held by something so pure, and you shouldn't want to touch something so tainted. You'd be better off keeping your distance. But because of my selfishness, I take it anyway. I need it, and I need you.

My mental barrier firmly in place, we start back. The TARDIS has to be half a mile down and half a mile out from where we are, but I can still feel her easily, and I've got the general layout of where I've been in this base in my head, so it shouldn't be too hard to find our way. When we're to the stairs, I offer to let go of your hand, but you hang on with a squeeze for just a moment before letting go. Side by side, we start the long descent. At least going down is less work than climbing up.

It's then that you sympathetically ask, "Tell me about it?"

It's obvious to me what you're thinking — what you saw in my mind before. So I tell you the bones of the story, trying to be as emotionally distant as I can while you ask a pertinent question here or there. Usually that would annoy me a bit, but not today, not after everything, and not in your company. You seem to pick up on that as well.

We're back to van Statten's display room, our relaxed, intermittent conversation nearly to a close. I reach out and lay a solemn hand on the TARDIS. "My piece of home."

"Is that the end of it? The Time War?"

Every story needs an ending, doesn't it? "I'm the only one left. I win.", when all I wanted at the time, even until I met you, was to die. "How about that."

You try to offer me consolation. "That Dalek survived. Maybe some of your people did too."

I wish. I shake my head and point to my temple. "I'd know. In here." And now you have an idea what I mean by that. "Feels like there's no one." So alone, an empty yet overwhelmingly crushing hollowness.

"Well then. Good thing I'm not going anywhere."

You, Rose,... Did I mention I'm not worthy of you? You shouldn't feel the need to be here for me, to act that concerned. "Yeah.", I manage to only twitch the corners of my mouth upward before I cross my arms over my chest to acknowledge the English kid's huffed arrival.

"We'd better get out. Van Statten's disappeared. They're closing down the base." He looks back and forth between us like his proclamation will make us jump to. "Goddard says they're going to fill it full of cement! Like it never existed!"

"About time." The irony isn't lost on me.

"I'll have to go back home.", he thinks aloud.

The sooner the better, if you ask me. "Better hurry up then. Next flight to Heathrow leaves at 1500 hours."

"Adam was saying that all his life he's wanted to see the stars.", you hint. I make a face back at you.

Oh come on, Rose; is he really to be your new boyfriend, then? "Tell him to go and stand outside, then." Wait. I shouldn't care if he's gonna be or not. Damn, but I do. Sharing your company in any way...

"He's all on his own, Doctor.", you plead with puppydog eyes. "And he did help."

Such a bleedin' heart! "He left you down there!"

"So did you!" My insides twitch at this knowledge. I know you don't mean ill with it, and it's true — at Downing Street, I said wherever I go, you go, and then I allow us to get separated almost first thing after arriving here. If I had kept you with me, none of this would have turned out the way it did. Maybe for better, though maybe for worse.

"What're you talking about? We've got to leave!" He's working himself into a panic, and here the two of us are, debating his locative fate as if we were discussing what overhang to loll under in inclement weather.

My eyes are back on you. "Rose, he's a bit pretty.", I try to tease. Nope, not jealous; only teasing. I sigh inwardly. Despite how I feel about him, it surely would be for the best to have him along for awhile, to keep distance between us after what's been shared.

With pronounced innocence, you reply, "I 'adn't noticed."

I raise my eyebrows and unlock the TARDIS door. "On your own head."

In contrast to our leisurely back and forth, it's clear he's still anxious and afraid. "What're you doing? She said 'cement'. She wasn't joking. We're going to get sealed in!"

You and I enter, and it takes him a few moments before we hear a "Doctor? What're you doing standing inside a box? Rose?" behind us. He sounds genuinely concerned and finally follows us in, but after two strides, I see out of the corner of my eye that he comes to a prompt, shocked halt. I've already set a course to the vortex, so I go to lean against a coral pillar, intending to keep an eye on our new starry-eyed, pretty-faced travel companion.

You pause on the other side of the console on your way through the room. "We stayin' still for a bit?"

"Yeah. You've done enough running for one day." We both laugh a little at this, me more sadly than you, but I don't think it's enough for you to pick up on.

It takes me by surprise, then, when I find both of my hands loosely closed in both of yours in a grateful gesture. I look up to see your lips upturned. "Thanks for coming after me."

Coming after you? My eyes steel at this unintentionally. I disappointed you in more ways than one! You — after I had thought I'd sentenced you to your death, carried out by the last Dalek, one from a species that had ruined... _everything_, and when I experienced an unbridled desire to blow the bastard creature into individual atoms — you yanked me back from the edge.

No; you in no way resemble a lesser, inferior being as my people would have claimed you to be. Your beauty, your compassion...

I can feel the lines of tension and pain in my face melt away, and my eyes soften for you. I had calmed my flaring emotions when you reached for me, so I've closed them all down but for the strictly platonic, warm and grateful ones I have for your existence, and I counter your spoken gratitude with a telepathic 'Thank you for saving _me_.' that you somehow, _I don't understand how_, pick up. I am far too aware I shouldn't initiate even such a temporary link between us like this, lest my mind get the idea I can try it again in the future casually and with potential permanent effect, but Adam doesn't need to know what I feel, and I tell myself he doesn't need to hear what I said.

Your face is filled with affection that you send through our hands to me and that I, again despite my better judgement, allow in. You make it clear that you understand the magnitude of what I'm getting at with my words, my thought. You let go with a gentle squeeze after a few moments and, finally breaking our gaze, call over to our new companion. Our companion... "I'll be right back, 'kay, Adam?" you wait for his delayed nod, then give me another meaningful look before going off down the corridor.

I shift my weight forward to a full stand and lumber over to the console, noting with an irritated frown that he hasn't stopped gawking since he stumbled in here.

As expected, he eventually speaks up. "She said you two weren't..." At the end of it, he makes a crude gesture with his hands to finish the sentence.

I roll my eyes, unentertained and unimpressed by his fluency in Low Ape. "We're not."

He blinks, looking nowhere near the vicinity of being convinced but not sure if he should be brave enough to push it. He does anyway. "Uh huh. Why not?" It comes out higher-pitched than he clearly intended, and squeaky, as if he half expects to get punched.

And like it's any of his business. Eyes on the monitor, I shut down some unnecessary systems and lock us down in the vortex. "It would be inappropriate." My plan had been to avoid and ignore this. Avoid and ignore, and it would go away. That's how things usually work for me. This time, however, that plan doesn't seem to be flying, especially when it's repeatedly brought up out of my control.

"But, so..."

I cut him off with faux mirth and point an open palm to the door. "So do you have any more inappropriate questions before I take you back to become one with the concrete?"

"No." He visibly jumps but soon recovers, meaning I apparently didn't seem quite serious enough. "Not really? I..." he seems to be debating whether or not to audibly mumble to himself. "She also said people who believe they've been in an alien spaceship are nutters."

I take one second to quickly condescendingly eye him up and down before looking back at the readings. "No argument from me."

He stands rooted in place, not knowing what he should do or where he should go.

"But you don't have to stand there looking nutters all night.", I suggest.

As luck would have it, that's when you returned, picking up on the tail end of what could be construed as our 'conversation'. A few seconds more of putting up with him and I would've shoved and shown him down the corridor; I didn't want him standing around dawdling or wandering to and fro around the TARDIS, and with so much on my mind right now, I certainly don't want to babysit.

"Here.", you motion that he follow you into said corridor. I assume you're going to show him to an unused bedroom. Let me rephrase that: I _hope _you'll be pointing him to an unused bedroom. A great unease I have no business feeling sets in, and I wonder if you might show him to yours instead.

...

My people, the ultimate non-interventionalists, the detached High Observers of other races, the superior race at the height of its so-called civilised society, did not allow themselves to fall into the trap of experiencing primitive, carnal feelings. They claimed they were destructive.

They very well can be. I know that for certain now.

But these same people also had the great and perpetual fortune of never being alone in their heads; every single one of us always had a constant, comforting buzz of background contact. I think back to the very rare recorded instances of trauma, where if one of them lost contact with the outside world, they would experience a physical ache and would soon become unconsolable, sometimes drifting into insanity. In the similarly rare instances of an infant, who knew no better, not being able to show a natural humming presence in others' minds, he or she was "euthanised" before being allowed to mature and "corrupt" the perfected society.

When the eleventh hour of the Time War came upon us all, I volunteered. My people agreed. It was their thinking that if any of them could handle the telepathic detachment and the confounding expansion of emotionalism that may plague the survivor as a result, it would be me, the one they had come to consider so flawed in that department anyway.

If they were here now, I'd laugh in their faces. Then... then I truly don't know what I would do. I am mentally exhausted, but I can't seem to shut down my internal dialogue. It attempts without restraint to overwhelm the silence. If I just close my eyes and lay here long enough...

"_Doctor!_"

The yell into my ear jolts me awake ...I'd fallen asleep?... to where my upper body flies off my bed. A bounce later, I'm settled into a stiff, confused stillness. Despite sweating profusely, I feel like I'm on fire. I recognize a warm hand on my chest and another on my shoulder, apparently placed there in an effort to contain my violent thrashing. One of them moves to gently hold the side of my face, and I turn to see your own not inches away.

"Doctor? Are you a'right?"

My eyes finally focus on yours in the dim light. "Rose. Did I wake you? I'm sorry...", I apologize as I catch my breath. Then I realise what I've done again. You're upset but, naturally, not terrified of me. I can't understand why. But without further preamble, I reel my internal affairs back to being internal and close off the connection I accidentally let flow between us once again, during the nightmare and loss of control. One of hundreds, yet another nightmare about the end of Gallifrey.

You give a pained look at my invisible action and, in turn, withdraw your hand from my face. "You shouldn't have to bear that alone."

"I have to, Rose."

"N—"

"_I have to_.", I resolve with a hand coming up to overlay yours on my shoulder, terminating discussion on the matter before I find myself breaking down and letting go again to any extent. "Thank you.", I state as I give your hand a squeeze and sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of my bed to stand. "I need a shower. Then I've got... things to do.", I excuse myself weakly.

After a second, you nod, eyes a little larger than normal. "I'll bring you a cuppa."

I nod almost imperceptibly and fold my lips together in an anemic smile before turning away to be alone with my own useless thoughts one again. I'll be fine by morning, and we can pretend this never happened.


	8. The Long Game — Subtraction

The Long Game | Subtraction

_I close your hand around the warm metal. "_Your_ key, alright?"_

-.-.-

I have a pretty good feel for potential companions, and I can tell he he's not gonna cut it for this sort of life. He's stumbly from what seems to be a lack of sleep combined with trepidation of the unknown. I don't expect him to be here for too long, but I'll entertain his presence aboard until such time, for your sake, and maybe our interpersonal sake as well.

My eyes are glued to you as you impress him, as you in turn impress me. The whole idea of using him as a distraction is obviously not working out as well as I'd hoped because I'm still falling.

His sense of adventure has nothing on the two of us.

Off you go, leading him where I suggested moments ago. Once past the gate you've pushed aside, you hop up onto and down from the few stairs toward the expansive viewport, Adam following behind, staring out through it in a daze. Having run out of hints from me and having no future knowledge of history to guide you, you stutter and suggest I fill in the rather massive blank.

I do, to a rather abbreviated extent, at which Adam, situated between and just behind the two of us, promptly passes out from overwhelming shock, in the same style as would a woman from your planet's relative recent past with her corset strung too tight. To which I can only think out loud: "He's your _boyfriend_."

You only flinch when he hits the floor, not lifting a finger, and not taking your eyes off the future Earth. "No' anymore.", you state with a straight face.

Ah. Well then. I sigh and look over at you, not able to contain a lopsided grin.

You return an initially suppressed full one before we both chuckle. It dies off, as do our expressions, and we're left looking at one another for a just a comfortable second or two too long. When my brain reconnects and I realize the uncomfortableness of it, I look away, out the window, eyes now fixed on the glowing orb. Your gaze then flits back down to Adam's unconscious form. "Should we...?"

"No; he'll live.", I answer to whatever question about him you had in mind, my hands firmly lodged in their respective coat pockets.

"Seriously, tho'. We haven't done anythin'.", you state for the record. I interpret that as simply defensive — that is, until you add on to the statement with another: "An' we sure aren't doin' anythin' now."

...Making it my turn to suppress a full grin.

"I found 'im a bedroom in the TARDIS last night. But when we got there, 'e wanted me to... hang out."

Yeah, I didn't see that coming at all.

"When I didn' follow him in, he asked to see sommore of the ship, so I took 'im to the library. Didn' take 'im more than a secon' of lookin' around to forget I was even in the room, so I left 'im to i' and went t' sleep. Figured the TARDIS could 'elp 'im find 'is way when 'e was done snoopin' in there."

I turn a bit more towards you and barely lift my eyebrow in a nod of acknowledgement, glad to hear the more simple fate of the evening than I had expected. I don't ask why you didn't stay with him. But no, I chide myself, you didn't need to explain yourself to me. It is, after all, your home too, and it's not like I've placed any personal restrictions on your behavior in it before. I should use this moment to tell you it's none of my business, but I don't.

At the lack of a full response, and seeing me staring out the window still in thought, your brow furrows a bit. "You up the rest of the night?"

"Yes."

"Too chipper.", you giggle causing me to automatically shake my brooding off and smile outright.

"That's me, you lazy human.", I joke with you. "You lot'd sleep your little lives away if left to yer own devices." And with that, your "ex" begins to stir. As usual, you take to being helpy, seeing to sitting him up and rousing him back to civilization, such as it is these days.

...

"Looks like it's just you and me.", I comment, taking up the empty space next to you on the lift up to Floor 500.

"Yeah."

"Good."

Your face breaks into a pleased grin. "Yep."

Mirroring your happiness, I clasp your willing hand in mine, so glad you chose to stick with me instead of the fly-by-night. Lucky, me, to have you as my plus one.

...

When you follow me in, I'm already at the console. I send us from Adam's old house back into the vortex as you approach, and when I speak, I do so without glancing your way. My voice is flat. "You gave him your mobile."

You pause. "I forgot to get i' back after I let 'im call 'is mum. I've go' i' now, though.", you indicate your pocket.

I flip a couple of unnecessary switches. "You gave 'im your TARDIS key."

"Ya... I... I though' the year two hundred thousand was ge'ing to be a bit overwhelming for 'im. He seemed like..."

"_Your_TARDIS key.", I enunciate, finally looking you in the eye.

Your expression makes it clear you're afraid I might chuck you out on the next stop as well. "'M sorry. I never expected 'im t'..."

By then I'm in front of you, reaching into my jacket pocket, then taking hold of one of your hands with both of mine and pressing your key and its chain into it. "I know you didn't." I feel my face soften. "You were just being you. But there's a reason I don't chat up and take home just any stray that comes along." I close your hand around the warm metal. "_Your_key, alright?"

Worry to relief to embarrassment shifts across your face. "Mine.", you give a quick nod in agreement.

"I said you're the best, Rose, and I meant it." I flash a reässuring grin that doesn't reach my eyes before letting go of you and turning away to go get some tea and decompress, but your voice stops me.

"Doctor?"

Eyebrows raised, I turn back and immediately find myself in a grateful, wordless hug, making my real grin appear. I give you a squeeze before pulling back, much as I don't want to. "Rose hugs are the best too." You smile at that. "Tea?"

"Love some." You make a face, visibly rubbing your tongue around your mouth, and I try to think nothing of the action. "The fizzy on Satellite Five was, li'l, beef or something. Worse aftertaste."

"Would you believe horse?"

You pale, I chuckle.

"Emu, actually. It's trendy now. Again, really. Besides, native horses went extinct a hundred thousand years ago."

I get the impression you don't think drinking emu is a quantifiable step up from drinking horse. I also get the impression you wouldn't've let Adam see your reaction just now. You take my hand in yours and lead us through to the corridor to leave the liquid meat idea far behind. "Tea. Definitely need some tea."

-.-.-

***A/N: Suggestions, corrections, and critiques VERY VERY welcome, especially regarding characterization, dialect, plotting, and any points I may have missed. THANKS IN ADVANCE!***


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